


Restless

by ChampagneSly



Series: Hidden Verse, Hidden Heart (Poetry AU) [6]
Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-09-13
Updated: 2012-09-13
Packaged: 2017-11-14 04:03:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,454
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/511106
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChampagneSly/pseuds/ChampagneSly
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>As part of my 30 day fic challenge. Part of the Hidden Heart AU. </p><p>Familiarity breeds fondness.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Restless

When Alfred walked into the cramped warmth of a kitchen in a rented Cambridge apartment and discovered that once more Arthur had set the table with a stack of papers, a even larger stack of books, and a steaming cup of tea, he sighed fondly, ran a hand through his still shower damp hair and knew he was on his own for entertainment. Arthur had been working harder than hard on his manuscript, seemingly spending every moment he wasn’t teaching students and lecturing Alfred on the proper use of caesuras in bed at their kitchen table, hunched over his journals and his endless cups of tea.

Alfred didn’t mind, didn’t have any qualms about keeping quiet and watching Arthur’s brilliance unfold in fits and starts punctuated with long winded-rants about the utter lack of proper appreciation for the Metaphysical poets. He didn’t mind being ignored in favor of obscure poets because he knew that he owed Arthur like a thousand times over for the nights he’d spent holed up in Alfred’s AU office pretending he understood the fine points of MEMS technology.  

As he ate his toast and drank his coffee, Alfred traced his finger over the looped black ink of Arthur’s words, still unable to figure out why anyone in this day and age would still hand-write an outline, but he was charmed as ever by the scribbled notes in the margins—Arthur’s secret conversations with long lost poets. Alfred couldn’t begrudge Donne and Carew and Suckling their share of Arthur’s attention, but his own attention was wandering, restless and eager for a change of scenery after days of quietly watching Arthur work while he puttered about their place and tried to resist the urge to get all up in Artie’s business when he bit his lip in concentration.

He smiled as he recalled exactly how well that had gone the one time he’d made the mistake of plucking the pen from Arthur’s fingers and titling his head back to kiss him. Arthur’s irritation had been swift, fierce, and so good his back twinged for days and he still couldn’t look at the kitchen floor without a flare of heat in his chest. The two day ban from the kitchen had been totally worth it, but now Alfred was forced to look elsewhere for his entertainment. Still, the sun was shining and it felt like a good day to indulge his intellectual fetishes before he could come home and rub Arthur’s tired shoulders and hope there was time and energy left for a private evening lesson.

He left a note on next to Arthur’s favorite teacup, his blocky print so different from Arthur’s pretty script, a tiny missive to say he’d gone out for the morning, seeking trouble in his secret lair while his favorite Professor hit the books. It felt good to be outside, legs stretching in great loping strides down the streets that wound through the heart of town and between university greens towards his home away from home. He’d rented the little garage two weeks after arriving, when the sheen of following Arthur around campus and experiencing the unexpected wonder of having absolutely nothing to do had faded.

Arthur called it a hovel, but Alfred preferred to think that Artie was just jealous that he had his Bat Cave full of fun while had to put up with books that smelled like mold. Sure, it wasn’t more than a rented storage unit and it didn’t hold a candle to the benches and equipment that cluttered his AU lab, but Alfred’s eager fingers and active mind couldn’t be expected to go six whole months without tinkering. Sure, he couldn’t work on his micro-electronics or dig deeper into the intricacies of dry-etching, but there was something nostalgic and thrilling in going back to basics, in the return to what he’d loved since he was a kid with too much energy, taking things apart and putting them back together. It was gears and metal and Alfred liked how the pieces that came apart in his hands sang to him, told him all the secrets to plug into equations that would make the whole of the parts better, faster, stronger.

On days like today, when the house was too quiet and Arthur was too busy, Alfred liked to leave the garage door open to let the sun glint off his work bench. He liked to play music and pour all that restless, pent-up need to create while he got grease beneath his fingernails and wrench-induced callouses on his thumb. It soothed the occasional pang of homesickness he felt for the organized chaos of his lab and the shared excitement of learning and discovery, and as he built the sort of robots that had once littered his parents’ basement, Alfred thought of a thousand new things he wanted to try when he and Arthur went home.

Hours slipped by like the sun-warmed sweat that beaded on his forehead until the sound of knocking disrupted the radio’s hum and the comforting clank of metal against metal. Alfred smiled, wiped his brow and turned to discover who had infiltrated his man-cave.

“O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O stay and hear, your true-love’s coming,”* Arthur said, stepping out of the September sunshine and over the assorted scraps Alfred had stripped from his latest project, carrying a large paper bag that Alfred’s stomach suddenly hoped was good.

Alfred grinned, stretching his arms over his head to pop shoulders stiffened from too much bending over his work bench. “My true-love’s coming, you say? I hope that means you brought me a ruben on rye and a Coke.”

“As droll as ever,” Arthur groused, rolling his eyes and he scuffed his shoes on Alfred’s make-believe laboratory floor and dipped his scowling lips to Alfred’s flushed cheek. “Its a ham sandwich and I don’t want to hear any clever quips about my abilities in the kitchen.”

“I wouldn’t dream of it, Artie,” Alfred teased, tossing the sack lunch on top of his latest half-cocked invention and dragging a grumbling Arthur into his lap, delighted by the unexpected company. “After all, even the great Professor Kirkland can’t mess up a sandwich.”

“Oh, be quiet and eat your damned lunch,” Arthur said testily, though his body was warm and loose over Alfred’s thighs, like he’d been looking for a sweet spot to rest all day long.

Alfred eyed the paper bag and then ignored his growling hunger in favor of kissing the corner of Arthur’s mouth and murmuring, “Not that I don’t appreciate the surprise visit and the awesome offerings of food, but to what do I owe this little visit? I thought you were going to be busy all day with your dead poet’s society?”

“I was. Am.” Arthur answered softly, toying with Alfred’s hands and turning his head just enough so Alfred could kiss him properly. Alfred felt the curve of Arthur’s smile and liked they way they came together so easily in a sweetly engineered embrace. Arthur hummed and nipped his bottom lip, pulling away to rub his thumb over a streak of oil on Alfred’s cheek. “But I know you get so wrapped up in tinkering with your toys that you’ll forget to eat if someone doesn’t take proper care of you. Pathetic, really.”

Alfred laughed and pinched Arthur’s hypocritical side. “Says the man who doesn’t sleep for days whenever he discovers the latest lost tome of forgotten poems.”

“Yes, well,” Arthur mumbled, brow furrowing before he sighed and slumped against Alfred’s chest. “I suppose I just needed to get out of the house, get out of the seventeenth century and be once more with the living.”

“Feeling a little restless?” Alfred asked gently, stroking Arthur’s side and kissing his throat. “Believe me, I know how that goes.”

Arthur smiled faintly. “What would an engineer know of a poet’s struggles?”

“Enough to know that you should put down the pen and I should put down the wrench, and we should take that ham sandwich that should be safe for human consumption, go outside, and spend a little time together,” Alfred offered. “Let’s be restless together, burn off all a little energy until we’re so spent that we can’t even think about going back to work.”

“You think so?” Arthur asked, kissing his cheek.

“I think its a winning formula.”

“You make a persuasive argument Professor Jones.” Arthur murmured. Contentment crept into his voice as he brought his lips to Alfred’s smile, “Well, then, come kiss me, sweet and [thirty], youth’s a stuff that will not endure.”*

Alfred followed Arthur’s instructions and followed his formula, leaving aside all else to chase sound of Arthur’s happy sigh.

~~

* [From Twelfth Night, ](http://www.poets.org/viewmedia.php/prmMID/20239)


End file.
